Invitation Declined

“My son, if sinners entice you,
Do not consent.”
(Proverbs 1:10)

Sin is enticing. If it were not, no one would do it. Sin has enough real good in it to make it appealing, but, because it is a perverted good, it always “takes away the life of its owners.” (1:19)

For example, food is good. Eating is good; regular, peaceful meals with family and friends are good. Good food tastes good. What is more delightful than a big, juicy hamburger, properly seasoned, fresh from the grill, loaded with tomato, onion, lettuce, ketchup, and mayonnaise? Give God thanks for it, and chow down with joy.

Gluttony, however, is condemned in no uncertain terms by God in His Word. Gluttony takes the good of eating and perverts it. To eat and enjoy is a good God has given us, and in fact not to do so is sin itself. But to eat and enjoy greedily and selfishly and to extremes is sinful.

Sinners are enticing as well. Just like misery, sin loves company. Because we are by nature sinners, it feels “at home” or natural for us to go along with the crowd as they sin merrily away. Christ, however, has put a new nature within us, and the old nature and the enticing sinners who promote it have to be resisted. Do not consent to go along. The path of the sinner always leads to a dead end. Sin never pays because it can’t—in the end it destroys the good it perverts and all other good as well.

When sinners entice, and they will, do not consent. Rather, look by faith to the greater and surer and everlasting good God delivers to those who through patient obedience and steadfast virtue walk with Him instead. God is the real thing, and the way He has made the world to operate according to righteousness and holiness is the only real path to joy and happiness and everything good. If someone promises to bring you there by any other way, they are lying through their teeth. Don’t go with them!

“Great God in heaven above, we give You thanks for all things good, and we pray You would build up in us by faith an ever greater love and gratitude for these wonderful gifts from Your hand. Grant to us wisdom and discernment, dear God, keep us from sin, and strengthen us in our resolve to turn away from it. When sinners entice us, O Lord, grant us the grace not to consent to them, but rather may we always be attracted instead by the beauty of Your holiness. Make us holy like You are holy, we pray, dear God—make us like our Lord Jesus Christ in whose name we pray. Amen.”